A STATELY home near Knutsford became a murder scene when BBC One filmed an episode of its new series The Body Farm.

Arley Hall featured in episode two of the TV show, which features Tara Fitzgerald and Keith Allen.

The new series is a spin-off from crime drama Waking The Dead, which sees a team of forensic scientists help to solve police investigations.

The team, headed up by Dr Eve Lockhart (Tara Fitzgerald), run The Body Farm, a research facility that uses donated bodies.

Filming took place at Arley for a week earlier this year.

The hall was used as suspect Harold Penton’s estate, a wealthy but reclusive businessman who has a body found in his grounds.

A prosthetic body was hidden in the Arley Hall garden compost heap, where it was discovered by The Body Farm team.

Garry Fortune, estate manager, said: “The prosthetics used for the bodies looked and felt so real and weighed as much as a real body would.

“It was a shock for the staff. One member of staff who wasn’t aware what was going on came across one of the prosthetics in the entrance to the main hall – it took a while to calm them.”